NEON News

An Update for the Ecological Community

In their latest Dear Colleague letter, CEO David Schimel and Board Chair Jim MacMahon describe the funding outlook for NEON, changes in NSF standards for MREFC projects, additions to the NEON staff and Board of Directors, and other project developments.

]]> Dear Colleagues:

It has been quite awhile since we have communicated with you. This is largely due to two factors. First, much of the recent work of NEON has involved getting our business systems in place, hiring new staff, writing NSF proposals to keep the funding stream flowing, and getting the new Boulder office up and running. Second, we had to negotiate a new cooperative agreement with NSF, which has required multiple exchanges between NEON and NSF to work out important details. We are pleased to announce that the cooperative agreement is likely to be completed within a week or two. Our cooperative agreement includes items such as reports required, a schedule of deliverables, personnel hires that must be vetted by NSF and so forth.

We thought we would divide the rest of this letter into sections to make it easier for you to track the ongoing developments of NEON Inc.

FUNDING - On December 6 a proposal for about $20 M was submitted to the National Science Board. They voted to authorize the Director of NSF, at his discretion, to award NEON Inc. up to that amount. The award would not include any construction funds. Rather, this award would be to complete the design of NEON and to fund project management. The NSF Director has taken the recommendation of the NSB under advisement and we hope to receive a letter of award in the near future. The Cooperative Agreement, mentioned above, is the award mechanism that will be used to implement the Director’s decision.

The 2009 budget request that NSF has submitted as part of the President’s budget contains a request for $26 M for the NEON Program.

If you look at the NSF budget, you will see that NEON is not in the MREFC portion. No, this does not mean NEON is dead. In fact, it is quite alive. NSF has developed a new sequence of events and tighter standards for large, complex projects such as NEON. Previously, construction funds could be made available after the Preliminary Design Review. Now, construction funds are not available until after the Final Design Review (FDR). Since we are not to the FDR stage yet, those funds were released to other parts of the Foundation’s programs. If we continue on our current path, we will be eligible for MREFC funds after the FDR that likely will occur in 2009.

Clearly, NSF continues to support NEON as we move closer to the project’s construction phase.

PERSONNEL - As you may remember we lost our Project Manager (PM) and more recently our Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Currently we have interim staff in place for both positions. Now we are pleased to announce that on February 8, Tony Beasley, the Project Manager for another NSF MREFC project (ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array) accepted our offer to join us. This is an absolutely critical hire. Tony has great experience and he will hit the ground running when he arrives in the US from Chile where ALMA is being constructed. We have also added a Procurement Officer and a Director of Human Resources to the DC office, and filled several positions in the Boulder office, including key science staff.

By now we had expected to advertise for the Chief of Education and the Domain Chief Scientists (DCS). These positions have been put on hold for the time being. We hope to advertise for the Chief of Education soon. The DCS searches will likely be delayed for a few months and perhaps up to a year, partly because of finances and partly because we are not yet in a position to use their talents to the fullest extent at this time. In addition, it will take considerable preparation time and effort to conduct a thorough search for the 20 DCS positions.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS - As you know we have had a program of inviting interested institutions to become contributing members of NEON. This group now has over 50 members. These institutions select a representative to communicate with NEON and to attend our annual meeting (we expect the first annual meeting to be scheduled this fall). Also, from this group of representatives a number are elected to be on the Board of Directors of NEON Inc. There are two categories of Board members: the At Large Directors are elected by the entire Board, while the Membership Directors are voted in by their peers, the NEON representatives. Once elected, there are no distinctions between directors in terms of their rights and duties.

This year’s elections added two new At Large Directors to the Board: Margaret Leinen (Chief Science Officer of Climos Corp. and former NSF Assistant Director for the Geosciences Directorate) and David Douglas (VP of Sun Microsystems). The five Member Directors are: Jim Ehleringer (University of Utah), Nancy Grimm (Arizona State University), Margaret Palmer (Chesapeake Biological Laboratory), Debra Peters (USDA ARS Jornada Experimental Range), and David White (Hancock Biological Station)

A consulting firm conducted the election of Member-elected Directors electronically.

CANDIDATE SITES - NEON Chief of Science, Michael Keller, has finished all the preliminary work related to the selection of the candidate sites for both core and relocatable sites within each Domain. In order to develop exact costs for candidate sites, every site must be visited to estimate its infrastructure needs. Michael has set a schedule for these visits. We must now put forward an accurate budget for NEON by late this year and we must assist NSF in conducting an Environmental Assessment of the sites. Without this budget in place, we cannot move forward at a healthy pace to meet stringent requirements for developing a complicated, distributed project like NEON.

As you can see, our lack of communication with you has not been due to lack of hard work by our staff. NEON Inc. is rapidly developing as an organization and we continue to make progress toward our many goals.

We appreciate your forbearance and support, and hope to have much more NEON news to report in the next few months.

Sincerely,

James A. MacMahon
Chairman
NEON, Inc. Board

David Schimel
CEO
NEON, Inc.

NEON Welcomes New Institutional Members

Five recent applicants have become the latest Institutional Members of NEON. They join a growing body of universities, scientific associations, national laboratories, and other organizations that formally support the purposes and activities of the Observatory. We welcome the Argonne National Laboratory, University of California-Merced (Sierra Nevada Research Institute), Oklahoma State University, the Organization of Biological Field Stations, and the Vermont Monitoring Cooperative. A total of 52 Founding and Institutional Members have joined NEON to date.

See all NEON Member Institutions

Join NEON

NEON Expands Its Board of Directors

The first-ever election of Board members chosen by representatives of NEON Founding and Institutional member organizations has added Jim Ehleringer, Nancy B. Grimm, Margaret Palmer, Debra Peters, and David S. White to the NEON Board of Directors. The Board also conducted an At-Large election to fill two open seats. The addition of Margaret Leinen and David Douglas brings the NEON Board of Directors to its full complement of 15 members.

Meet the new NEON Board members

NEON Session Added to Upcoming Conference on Stable Isotopes

Experts from the National Ecological Observatory Network will discuss a range of topics related to the NEON isotopes sampling plan at Isoscapes 2008, a scientific conference to be held in Santa Barbara, CA, April 7-10. The session will be an opportunity for NEON scientists to vet how isotopic measurements in the Observatory framework are broadly designed for biogeochemistry and organismal ecology, and to obtain input and guidance in refining the NEON measurement strategy from the meeting participants. Attendees will receive updates on the current status of NEON and on the use of isotopes in the Fundamental Instrument Unit and the Fundamental Sentinel Unit design. Session leaders will seek feedback from the community on how best to describe the traceabilty from NEON scientific objectives to its measurement strategy. Registration for the conference ends January 31.

If you plan to attend the NEON session, please email Rebecca Hufft Kao at bkao@neoninc.org

NEON Adds Scientist to Key Post in Boulder

Dr. Brian Johnson, formerly of Ball Aerospace & Technology Corporation, has joined the Science and Education Office in Boulder, Colorado, as the NEON Airborne Observation Platform Scientist. His research interests include the application of remotely sensed data to atmospheric, climate, land use, and ecoystems studies.

SEA Workshop to Focus on NSF BIO Funding Opportunities

The Science and Engineering Alliance and National Science Foundation will host a workshop on the “Mechanics of Developing Competitive Proposals” in Atlanta, Georgia, January 22-24, 2008. Attendance is limited to 45 Biology/Biosciences faculty from historically black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions.

See details and register

News from NSF

The Foundation’s Human and Social Dynamics priority area announces its FY08 competition, including an initiative focused on identifying human drivers of environmental change.

See details and deadlines

NEON Welcomes New Member Institutions

A total of 43 US universities and scientific institutions were approved as Founding Members of NEON before the application deadline of November 1, 2007. A flurry of new applicants in the last week of October included: Washington State University, George Mason University, American Institute of Biological Sciences, USDA ARS Jornada Experimental Range, Oregon State University, and the University of Minnesota. NEON also welcomes four Institutional Members to date: Archbold Biological Station, University of Central Florida, Idaho State University, and the University of Maryland.

See all NEON Member Institutions

Join NEON

NEON Seeks a Director of Quality Management

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) has an immediate opening for a full-time Director of Quality Management. This senior leader will be based in Boulder, Colorado, and responsible for developing high-level, cross-functional approaches for the construction, procurement, and operation of a wide range of NEON sensors, laboratory analyses, and computer systems.

NEON Adds Expertise to the Boulder Office

Two new staffers have joined the NEON team in Colorado. Biologist Rebecca Hufft Kao has been recruited as the NEON Fundamental Sentinel Unit Scientist to manage the development of Fundamental Sentinel Unit protocols, sampling designs, and data products. Her interests include the importance of genetic variation in invasive species and linking basic evolutionary and ecological research to species management and conservation. Linda Laurens, the new Executive Assistant to the NEON CEO, comes to the project from UNAVCO, Inc., a non-profit consortium that promotes Earth science by advancing high-precision techniques for the measurement and understanding of deformation.

Immediate Opening for NEON Director of EH&S

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) has an immediate opening for the senior leadership position of Director of Environmental Health and Safety. The Director of EH&S will create and manage environmental health and safety programs at more than 60 environmental monitoring sites across the United States, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. For this position, NEON needs a proven leader with strong problem solving skills and a willingness to travel.

Creating a Whole Earth Observatory

Leaders from the United States Group on Earth Observations (USGEO) hosted a constituent forum at the Commerce Department in Washington, DC, on November 1, 2007. The subject was the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)—an international initiative to coordinate continuous observation of the planet at all scales. GEOSS is focused on the priority themes of water security, changing landscapes and biodiversity, disaster mitigation, and climate change. It is preparing to draw on emerging and established US observatory systems—including NEON, Earthscope, and OOI—as contributors to this international effort. The GEO Ministerial Summit will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, November 30, 2007.

New Founding Members Join NEON

A total of 36 universities and institutions have been approved as Founding Members of NEON to date, including 10 applicants in October: Arizona State University, University of Calgary, University of California-Berkeley, University of Hawaii (Hilo and Manoa), Murray State University, Smithsonian Institution, UT- Battelle Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of Virginia, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The deadline for Founding Membership applications is midnight, October 31.

See all NEON Member Institutions

Join NEON

Leveraging the Next Generation of Ecological Data

NEON CEO David Schimel and NSF will co-host a technical workshop to help prepare the ecological community for a data-rich era of ecological research. “Data-model Assimilation in Ecology: Techniques and Applications” will be held at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, October 22-24, 2007.

See workshop details

Meet the NEON Director of Human Resources

Robin Martin, a senior resources leader with more than 15 years of experience in both for-profit and non-profit sectors, comes to NEON from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.